About

I've been building and fixing websites since 2009, mostly on WordPress, Shopify and Magento.

I'm self-taught. Most of what I know came from working through problems on real sites: slow servers, migrations that didn't go to plan, and themes that needed replacing. That's still where most of my time goes.

I started out building sites for local businesses alongside a day job, went freelance full time in 2015, and spent several years working mainly on Magento. I'm comfortable on both sides of a site, from the server through to the front end.

I'm currently Technical Director at Peaks Digital Marketing, and I take on some freelance work alongside that.

What I work on

Migrations
Moving sites between hosts and platforms, including Magento to WooCommerce, while keeping URLs, data and search rankings intact.
Rebuilds
Replacing old themes and page builders with cleaner, faster builds. Lately a lot of Shopify work on Horizon and Dawn.
Page speed
Core Web Vitals, caching with Redis and Varnish, server configuration, and removing scripts that don't need to be there.
New builds
WordPress, WooCommerce and Shopify sites, and occasionally Django when something more custom is needed.
Plugins & integrations
Custom WordPress plugins, form and API integrations, and product import tools.
Technical SEO
Structured data, tracking fixes, and moving SEO plugin data across without losing anything.
Clean-ups
Removing malware from compromised WordPress sites and locking them down afterwards.
Hosting
Linux and Windows servers, Plesk, managed WordPress hosting, staging sites and Git-based deployment.

Some recent examples

  • Shopify theme builds on Horizon, with custom sections driven by metaobjects.
  • Separate retail and trade WooCommerce stores, including custom order emails.
  • Core Web Vitals improvements across several WordPress sites, tested on staging first.
  • Internal WordPress plugins for structured data, keyword cannibalisation reports and before-and-after checks on migrations.
  • A Django site with a custom image library inside its editor.
  • Host migrations, including fixing a page builder site that broke after a previous move.
  • A community site with a live request queue, voting, a quiz and a browser-based beat maker.

Experience

Now

Technical Director at Peaks Digital Marketing

Remote. Site builds, migrations, performance, hosting and internal tooling.

Since 2010

Freelance web developer as RMV Development

Started out building websites for small local businesses, then went freelance full time in 2015. Clients have included Zeus Juice UK and plenty of small and medium-sized businesses, direct and through Upwork.

From 2015 most of that work was on Magento: bug fixes, patches, bespoke extensions, full builds and Magento 1 to 2 migrations for more than 50 clients.

From 2015

Web Developer & System Administrator at Evolution Vaping

Looked after every part of the website and its dedicated server, from the catalogue and SEO to custom extensions for different customer types and complex product options.

2010–2015

Capita on the O2 / Telefónica account

Started as a consumer re-contracts agent and moved into process improvement in 2013. Built the Goodlife and Prepay desktop simulators used across O2 sites, and an Excel macro for the quality team that saved the equivalent of 10 full-time roles.

2009

Web Developer & Administrator at Midland Mobile Tyres

Ran the company website and built a new bespoke e-commerce system for the business.

Education

2008–2009

BTEC First Diploma in ICT at South Birmingham College

Distinction*. Student of the Year 2009 across the college's IT courses.

Tools

Languages
PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, SQL, Liquid, Python and Bash.
Platforms
WordPress, WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento 1 and 2, BigCommerce, OpenCart, Joomla, Drupal and Django.
Themes & builders
Shopify Horizon and Dawn, custom WordPress themes, Divi, Elementor and Gravity Forms.
Infrastructure
Linux and Windows servers, dedicated servers and VPS, Plesk, Apache, Nginx, MySQL, Redis and Varnish. Hosting on DigitalOcean, Kinsta and SiteGround.
Workflow
Git and GitHub, SSH, WP-CLI, Composer, Local for development, staging sites, and Git-based Shopify theme deployment.
Performance & SEO
PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse, Query Monitor, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Rank Math, Yoast, Ahrefs and Semrush.
Integrations
REST APIs, Matrixify, SparkLayer, Royal Mail Click & Drop, Huboo and the Google Drive API.
Day to day
ClickUp, Asana, Slack and Microsoft Excel.

Elsewhere

LinkedIn, Upwork and GitHub.